Jeff Lunden
Jeff Lunden is a freelance arts reporter and producer whose stories have been heard on NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition, as well as on other public radio programs.
Lunden contributed several segments to the Peabody Award-winning series The NPR 100, and was producer of the NPR Music series Discoveries at Walt Disney Concert Hall, hosted by Renee Montagne. He has produced more than a dozen documentaries on musical theater and Tin Pan Alley for NPR — most recently A Place for Us: Fifty Years of West Side Story.
Other documentaries have profiled George and Ira Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, Harold Arlen and Jule Styne. Lunden has won several awards, including the Gold Medal from the New York Festival International Radio Broadcasting Awards and a CPB Award.
Lunden is also a theater composer. He wrote the score for the musical adaptation of Arthur Kopit's Wings (book and lyrics by Arthur Perlman), which won the 1994 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical. Other works include Another Midsummer Night, Once on a Summer's Day and adaptations of The Little Prince and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for Theatreworks/USA.
Lunden is currently working with Perlman on an adaptation of Swift as Desire, a novel of magic realism from Like Water for Chocolate author Laura Esquivel. He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
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Composer Tim Minchin brings his musical adaptation of the film, Groundhog Day, to Broadway. It's the story of a cynical weatherman who is forced to relive the same day over and over again.
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The class-action suit brought against the hit musical doesn't seek damages. The attorneys say the hope is to draw attention to Broadway's spotty record in serving audiences with disabilities.
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In New York City, the venerable Hudson Theater reopens this week, after nearly a half-century of being used for other purposes. It's the newest addition to Broadway's 40 stages.
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The Rockettes are as American as apple pie, but some dancers in the famous troupe don't want to perform at Donald Trump's inauguration.
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Librettist Gene Scheer says the drama of George Bailey's life is "an operatic story." So he, along with composer Jake Heggie, turned It's a Wonderful Life into an opera. -
When Falsettos first premiered in 1981, this frank, funny musical about gay, Jewish life in New York City was covering new territory. Now a revival is in the works, but will it still feel resonant in an age where gay rights have become mainstream?
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As part of NPR's year-end series "One That Got Away", reporter Jeff Lunden tells us about his favorite song from the hit Broadway musical Hamilton. It's not about the founding fathers; it's about some founding mothers.
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Based on co-writer Griffin Matthews' experiences in the country, Invisible Thread explores the connection between an American gay couple and a group of Ugandan orphans. -
The new musical about the U.S.'s Founding Fathers — set to a mostly hip-hop score — that everyone's been talking about for months and months finally opens officially on Broadway Thursday night. -
The new musical about the U.S.'s Founding Fathers — set to a mostly hip-hop score — that everyone's been talking about for months and months finally opens officially on Broadway Thursday night.
